They could also raise the ticket price. The demand is high, the supply is limited, and having lots of digits keeps people from flooding the registration page.

Putting the pros and cons of the free hardware aside, I'm not sure getting rid of it would solve the demand problems. Apple charges $700 more for WWDC tickets, give away no hardware, and it still sells out in under two hours.

It's fine to sell out a developer conference if there is high demand by developers. The problem with I/O, is that there are some who go, even though they aren't core Google platform developers.

I consistently hear the key reason to go to WWDC, is that a good portion of the Apple Engineers take the week off, and go there to answer, one-on-one, questions that external developers have regarding APIs and use cases. Quite often, the person answering the question, is the Apple Engineer who wrote that API in the first place.

I agree that you can't do anything if your raw demand is too high. But I think free hardware creates artificial demand, where some people are there just to get the hardware, and other people are there because the hardware makes the financials a bit easier to swallow.

Personally, I don't own an Android device, but I'd probably sign up if I lived in the area. It would be fun and I'd probably break even so why not?

What further exasperates the issue is the free hardware is often be kept by an individual while the ticket price is paid by their employer.

Yes...this was noticeable even though I don't care much about Google I/O. Last year I saw someone I follow on twitter announce that he had a ticket and it became quite obvious to me that he's a swagster. Great guy but not one of the people whom I think would add the most value to a developer conference. :)

I do wonder how many people dependent on corporate / government / educational institution training approval actually can go to these conferences.

I've never been to IO - but have been wondering - does it seem like a significant number of people disappear after collecting the free gear?

Hah, your forgetting about the black ball that never carried a tune.